Foreword
Well, this one was a real doozy. Piecing this chapter together proved to be harder than you'd think. Even with this being one of the most important chapters in the story, I had such a hard time drumming up motivation for it that I didn't feel like I would be able to do it justice. Pretty much the whole time I was writing it, I felt like I was slogging through at a snails pace and hardly making any progress. But somehow, with the help of the panic monster and endless loop of 'Suspense' (from the unofficial MCSM soundtrack) I was able to push through—and in pretty good time considering! :D
Enjoy!
Chapter XIV
Groundbreaking
««««« … »»»»»
"Dude, I dunno how I can be any clearer!" the tall boy grumbled in exasperation, evidently as frustrated as Gabriel himself. "What do you want me to do? Tell you charades-style?"
"I promise you," Gabriel assured him, "that's that last thing I want you to do."
He was hopeful that this would be the end of it, but unfortunately he had no such luck, the boy daring enough to actually press further.
"Four words; six syllables;" the boy continued, undeterred despite Gabriel's best efforts to appease him. Gabriel slapped a hand to his forehead as this boy went on, "Sounds like... 'Schmonster in the schmaschement.'"
This is getting ridiculous.
He was trying to be patient with the boy and his friend, but he was making a complete spectacle of things, not to mention making no sense at all! Gabriel had seen the world. There was no such thing as a 'metal monster', and he'd seen enough of the building to know therewas no basement. Unfortunately it was much more likely that this cry for help was in actuality a cry for attention, and the crowd was starting to grow impatient with it.
"Next," Gabriel said.
"Wait, just—" the girl with him tried to argue further when three more kids abruptly pushed their way to the front of the crowd.
"Jesse! Lukas!" she said, seeming excited to see them. "You're okay!"
"Well that's just fine," Gabriel said, relieved, "Now we can all—"
"Gabriel, you have to help!" one of the new faces cut him off, a boy in green suspenders. "There's a monster in the basement!"
Gabriel was afraid his patience had run out.
He sighed. "So I've heard," Gabriel stated sternly, crossing his arms.
"No, this is a different monster!" the boy insisted.
Well, isn't that interesting.
"Oh?" he inquired rhetorically "And let me guess. This monster is bigger and badder than the last monster?"
The boy looked somewhat sheepish. "Uh… yeah?"
The assembly began giggling.
"Stop that giggling," Gabriel ordered, turning to the crowd. "This is no laughing matter, whether it's riddled with falsehoods or not."
They stopped instantly, and Gabriel faced the group of kids again.
"Now, hold on just a minute," he said, his tone deliberately austere. "If this is a joke, it isn't funny."
"I'm not messing around—" he explained, "we were down in the basement, and this guy attacked us!"
He seemed genuine enough, but—
Wait.
"I thought you said it was a metal monster that attacked you. Now it's a person who attacked you?"
The boy spared his friends a look. "Well… a person too."
"A super crazy person!" said the new girl.
"With potions!" said the other girl.
"And mushrooms!" inserted the black-haired boy. They gave him a look.
"I know this sounds ridiculous," the first boy said. "but you have to listen to me! We're all in danger!"
A bold claim. Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
"Right," he said flatly. "Look, I don't want to have to call security—"
"You don't have to," came a voice from the crowd, and the people parted to make way for three strong-looking security men.
"Sorry 'bout that, your warriorness," said the blonde man in charge, "It seems these troublemakers have been wreaking havoc all night."
He eyed the group of kids, all of whom suddenly looked like they'd been caught red-handed.
"I see," said Gabriel, crossing his arms. That cleared any remaining doubt.
"What? No, you have to listen!" the boy said, still trying to hold to his farce. "Somebody's been building a—"
He and one of his friends were seized by the arm.
"All right everyone, nothin' to see here," the security man cut in, casually dragging the two behind him and heading for the way out. "Go back to your geeking out please. Thank you."
The other two guys prodded the more compliant of the group out while a little pig followed behind them.
A pig? Hm. How strange.
"Now then," Gabriel addressed the gathering of people once more. Hopefully he could salvage this. "Any more questions?"
"I have a question for you," said a voice from somewhere near the back of the crowd. A voice that—sounded… familiar. "Do you really believe anyone can be great?"
"With enough hard work," Gabriel said almost automatically as the person gradually made their way through the crowd, "yes."
"Was that where I went wrong?" it asked. Finally the man pushed his way through to the front and blasted, "I simply didn't WORK hard enough?!"
Gabriel suddenly realized why the voice was so familiar at the same time he laid eyes on an all too familiar face.
It… couldn't be…
Gabriel felt his face go cold.
"Ivor?" he muttered in disbelief. "Is that really you?" He couldn't believe his eyes. "What—What are you doing here?"
Ivor glowered up at him and said, more than a hint of resentment lacing his tone, "You should be asking yourself that."
In that moment, it was as if everyone else in the whole room wasn't there, and it was just the two of them. Just he, Gabriel, and the man before him. A man whom he hadn't seen in a very… very long time.
Ivor climbed the stage, his eyes fixed on Gabriel's.
"Why don't you tell them the real story, Gabriel?" he spat.
Ivor continued to hold eye-contact for a painful amount of time, but Gabriel was loath to break it. His tone softened against his will as he somberly, regretfully murmured, "I see time has made you bitter."
Now level to him, Ivor met him on the stage. "And it's made you an even bigger fool."
« … »
"Jesse, what do we do?" Lukas asked through a whisper.
Before Jesse could think of a response, the guy grabbing his arm spoke up, "If you wanna like, make my job easy for once, you could always do nothing. That would be nice."
Jesse and Lukas shared a look.
The man who held him and Petra captive was the same usher guy who they'd sneaked past to get into the keynote. Apparently he wasn't just an usher, but he was just as chill as ever. The guy didn't even sound mad, which was nice, but they still had a major problem.
If Gabriel didn't believe them, that meant they had to stop Ivor. On their own. They just needed to get away from this guy first. But how?
Jesse glanced around to Axel and Olivia who both gave him looks of confusion and worry, but then he looked further back at Reuben trailing behind them.
Jesse gave a quick, quiet whistle, catching his little buddy's attention. Jesse discreetly—hopefully—gestured to Reuben, praying he'd take the hint.
Reuben raised an eyebrow. "What do you want me to do?" Jesse imagined him saying. "I'm a pig."
"Exactly!" he told him in his mind. "You're a pig, you can get away with anything! Can't you do something?" Jesse gave him a pleading look.
Reuben's eyes lit up as something seemed to click for him. Suddenly Reuben charged ahead and stopped in front of the usher. He squealed loudly to get his attention and butted his head into his leg.
"Hey—piggy!" the usher exclaimed, mistakenly letting go of Jesse and Petra in the process. "Shoo! Shoo! Get outta here!"
The usher then turned to Jesse and asked in a more calm tone. "Mind calling off your guard dog?"
Jesse crossed his arms, allowing himself to be far too easily offended by it. "Reuben is a pig, not a dog."
The two other ushers found this amusing for some reason and chuckled. The blonde one turned on them and asked rather passive aggressively, "Uh, and would you mind, like, doing your jobs or somethin'?"
The two ushers stepped forward to deal with Jesse's guard pig as Reuben shook his little piggy tail at them, leaving Jesse's other friends unguarded. Jesse looked around and slowly backed toward them.
As soon as he was close enough, Jesse whispered as softly as possible, "Get ready to run and follow me."
Lukas and Petra nodded, while poor Olivia and Axel just looked at each other again.
Then, Jesse turned tail and booked it. His friends followed.
"Hey, where did they—" he heard the usher exclaim from behind him, "aw maaan, not again!"
"Sorry!" Jesse shouted back instinctively.
"Jesse!" Olivia cried out as they tore back toward the keynote. "What's going on? What happened down there?"
"You know that weird build we found in Ivor's lair?" he tried to explain as quickly as he could. "Yeah, he was building a Wither."
"A Wither?" Olivia gasped.
Axel, already sounding out of breath, asked, "You mean one of those creepy bomb chucking monster things?"
"Uh…" Jesse looked to Lukas.
Lukas frowned and gasped out as he ran, "Yeah—One of those—'creepy bomb-chucking monster-things'!"
"Those are like the most ultimate evil griefing weapon known to man!" said Axel.
"Somehow," Olivia chipped in, "I get the feeling Ivor doesn't plan on killing it to make a freacon beacon."
Clearly Axel and Olivia knew more about it than he did, but he did not like the sound of it any better coming from them than he did from Lukas.
"Come on!" Jesse urged on. "We've gotta stop Ivor!"
It wasn't long, but as soon as Jesse found his way back into the crowded room, he was met with an alarming sight. Ivor already stood on the stage with Gabriel and walked toward the wall behind them. Jesse only now noticed the lever waiting there.
"I'm sorry this is how they had to learn the truth…" Ivor said, flicking the switch, "…but nothing built can last forever, Gabriel."
The all but finished daunting structure of the Wither's body rose up from the floor at the back of the stage.
"Gabriel!" Jesse shouted. "Stop him!"
"Ivor, no!" shouted Gabriel, immediately shooting into action.
Immediately wasn't fast enough. In only a fragment of a moment, Ivor had placed the skull in the dead center of the build.
A shockwave felt from across the room sent Ivor and Gabriel flying into the crowd. The blast completely decimated the stage, and even a few people in front were visibly hurt. The explosion was so devastating Jesse wondered how Ivor even survived being right next to it, but his attention was quickly turned back to the monster itself.
Gasps and yelps of fear and shock erupted from the onlookers as they backed away.
The security caught up to them and stopped just short of grabbing them again when they saw with their own eyes the scene before them.
"Creepers!" exclaimed their leader. "You—you weren't joking!"
The three-headed skeletal form of the Wither now opened its soulless glowing eyes, letting out a deep inhuman growl.
Jesse watched as Ivor got back to his feet and commanded, "Creature—attack!"
The creature obeyed.
It released a ghastly shriek and rose into the air, looking down at its prey before firing off several balls of fire at once. Wait… not fireballs. Were those… skulls?
The people flew into a panic, scattering and screaming in a flurry, some trying to get away, others trying to hide, many frozen in fear and trembling. The usher meanwhile was still doing his job, and still somehow managing to sound incredibly calm considering the circumstances, as he tried to coax the many terrified citizens into evacuating the premises.
Jesse looked around to locate his friends who surprisingly were all still with him. That didn't last long though. One of the Wither's flaming projectiles hurtled toward them, and the whole group scattered. In a few ticks Jesse lost track of everyone.
He scrambled to catch his bearings as the world around him spun into chaos. He felt like the ground would fall out from beneath him and didn't realize until it was almost too late…
The ground was actually shaking.
He stumbled and fell to his back as the blocks he stood on were yanked out from under him by an unseen force.
Jesse's breathing quickened as he watched, all around him, whole chunks of the building ripped out and sucked toward the Wither. Tables and plants, pillars, and chunks of the floor were uprooted. They spiraled in the air around the monster where they were absorbed, creating a black, amorphous mass around itself.
Then, through the commotion all around him, Jesse heard one distinctive, panicked, "Oink!"
Jesse spun around, frantically trying to spot his friend.
"Reuben?!" he called out, but didn't see him anywhere. "Reuben where are—?!"
Too late, his eye caught a glimpse of another flaming skull heading right for him. He only had time to gasp before he was—
Something heavy and blunt crashed into him from the side, slamming him to the ground. Jesse opened his eyes to see none other than Gabriel the Warrior him-freaking-self staring down at him.
"Are you all right?" his hero asked him.
"Y-Yeah…" Jesse murmured.
"Good."
Gabriel wasted no time and took to the fray, charging toward the monster. He leaped, and then he struck.
The only discernible block from the original build, the orange glowing one, was now buried within Wither's rib cage. When Gabriel's sword met it, the block seemed to react, casting him back to the ground like it had hit him.
That… block, Jesse thought. It's like it… repelled him somehow.
"Gabriel!" Jesse shouted. He rushed to help him up but Gabriel stopped him, shooting to his feet.
"No! Stay away!" he ordered. "It's after me, not you!"
Jesse looked around again to find his team had reassembled behind him. Jesse did a headcount. Olivia and Axel, Reuben, Petra… even Lukas. They were all there. They were all safe.
Thank the Creator…
"Stand back!" Gabriel called out. "I will slay this—"
Gabriel froze. He seemed stunned.
"The Command Block…" he murmured, eyeing the block embedded in the Wither's chest.
Command Block?
Gabriel suddenly turned on Ivor, and with equal parts fury and terror he shouted, "Ivor, what have you done?!"
Ivor responded with a taunt and a smug little grin. "Look at him!" he said with a gesture. "The mighty Gabriel! Looks like true greatness is out of his reach."
Gabriel turned to face Jesse's group, and even though Jesse still believed Gabriel could do it, he recognized the defeated look of failure in his eyes. He had seen it enough.
"He may not be able to defeat this creature—but I can!"
As the ground quaked and the walls crumbled to particles, Jesse took a few steps back to herd his team away from danger, while Ivor took a few steps forward.
"Creature—retreat!"
The Wither… didn't obey.
It turned to face him, one of its three heads now wearing one eye instead of two, bright purple instead of white, and a gruesome clump of blackened blocks melded around its skull. Unwavering.
Ivor cleared his throat and tried again. "Creature—retreat!"
Whatever point Ivor was trying to make, Jesse hoped he could make it. Ivor being taught a lesson was NOT worth the lives of him and his friends, or anyone else here.
"Retreat I said! Retreat!"
It's… it's not working.
"Uhh… no need to be alarmed, my friends," Ivor said, sounding alarmed. "I have an elixir that will destroy this creature."
Ivor manifested a potion from his pocket, and Jesse thought he recognized it.
"Uh-oh…" Axel muttered.
Uh-oh?
Jesse turned around to face him. "Uh-oh? What do you m—" Jesse's eyes widened in realization. "Oh no… Axel, you didn't!"
Ivor threw the potion at the Command Block, making his mark with the accuracy of a skeleton—and it did nothing.
Oh no… Axel, you did.
"Uh, what?" Ivor stammered, sounding beyond alarmed at this point. "Impossible... It should have worked—I took such care!"
"Axel, the potion!" Jesse demanded. "Give it to me! NOW!"
Axel didn't hesitate, fumbling through his pocket until he clumsily pulled out the real potion and shoved it into Jesse's hands.
"You!" Ivor blasted at them. "I don't think you realize what you've done!"
Jesse took aim, and with all his might, he threw that potion. He too hit his mark, but a tick before the potion collided, the Command Block was suddenly swallowed up in black shield of debris.
"It's protecting itself!" Ivor exclaimed. "Without the Command Block exposed... the potion is—useless! It wasn't supposed to happen like this!"
Ivor turned tail and ran.
"Ivor!" Gabriel shouted after him. "You coward, come back here!"
The creature shrieked and Gabriel flinched. He turned back to it and fear returned to his face.
"We—" he said quietly, then commanded at once, "We must leave!"
"Wait—" said Jesse, "you're running away? But you just told Ivor—"
"Ivor was right about one thing—" said Gabriel. "I can't defeat that thing. Not on my own."
"We can help!" offered Jesse, looking back to his team. "Right?"
"Right!" agreed a slightly nervous Olivia and slightly less nervous Axel.
"You bet!" said Petra.
"Oink!" affirmed a determined Reuben.
"D—Uhhhh…" volunteered Lukas.
Gabriel shook his head. "No, you don't understand. That is no ordinary Wither." He pointed. "Trust me, there's nothing we can do! Not now!" Gabriel rushed toward the exit and waved for them to follow. "Come! Follow me! We must seek sanctuary!"
Jesse watched the group take off after him and brought up the rear.
As they crossed the bridge over the moat, an ear-piercing, gurgling screech resounded through the air, threatening to shake his brain loose. Jesse stopped in his tracks. There, standing in the middle of that bridge, Jesse made the grave mistake of looking back.
Out through the massive glass dome that made up the ceiling of the convention center, what looked like a huge dark tentacle burst through. Shortly another one followed. The deafening sound of shattering glass could be heard all around as the creature, now easily five times the size it was before, rose up into the air.
It reared its ghastly heads, one at a time, each of them matched with a single soulless glowing purple eye, and the teeth and jaw of death itself.
Terror engulfed him as one of the heads of this world-shattering abomination before him slowly looked down.
The world seemed to go quiet as the Void itself met his eyes.
« … »
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
— Psalm 82:5
Author's Notes
It's fortunate they didn't know the usher's name, or that scene would have been a huge pain to write. XD And no, if you were wondering, I didn't just have them get escorted out for extra cool points. :P
So this scene originally suffered from what I'm going to call 'The-People-Who-Can-Actually-Do-Something-About-What's-Going-On-Just-Stand-Around-Doing-Nothing-For-No-Reason' syndrome. I really should change the name, but suffice it to say, the problem was what the heck is stopping Jesse or his friends from just jumping Ivor and stopping him themselves? Realistically it's just not as easy as it sounds, but when you know the world is in danger and you're Jesse, it's much more in character for you to just do something. I needed to incapacitate him somehow, and I remembered this idea I had forever ago. So, why not like, have the security actually show up and some point and, like, do their jobs? XD Makes sense since they kinda caused a huge scene outside and the usher clearly saw them go in. :P Bonus! It also incapacitates the security, so they can't deal with Ivor either. ;)
- No such thing as a 'metal monster' — to reiterate for anyone who may not understand this, Iron Golems are not considered 'monsters' as they are intended to be used to protect people. They attack monsters. In fact I imagine it would be borderline unheard of for people in general to use one to attack other people. Gabriel is simply not connecting dots, as he's also predisposed to them likely jesting for attention.
- The Wither Explosion — So there's this thing the Wither does when it's spawned where it sets off a massive explosion. And I mean massive. It's actually the most powerful explosion in the game. In MCSM it was more of a pop, and understandably so. I'll be the first to say, standing right next to an accurate Wither explosion would have killed Ivor dead. :P Without any armor, even standing a good distance away from the Wither could kill you. With Gabriel being fully armored a few blocks away, he would be fine, but Ivor? Yeah, he'd be dead. Well, I hated to actually nerf the Wither if I could further utilize its OPness, but I was either just going to have to call it suspension of disbelief like they did, or actually change what happens (have them duck out of the way or something) which would have made the scene clunkier.
That's when my brother realized something. There's also this enchantment in Minecraft called 'blast protection'. ;P Blast protection, as it turns out, is very effective against a Wither explosion. With a set of enchanted blast protection IV leather armor minus the helmet (essentially what Ivor is wearing) Ivor could seriously be hugging the thing, and it it still wouldn't kill him. XD (Really, we tried it!) Awesome, right? :D
I obviously couldn't actually explain this in the story (or have Ivor hugging the Wither), but I addressed it to maybe explain later, or be intuitable. :)
Also, if you have faced a Wither, you'll notice that this Wither is actually much more docile than a typical Wither. Good thing, too. A regular Wither would have killed them all in seconds. I credit most of that to Ivor's programming.
- Oops! — So, I made a continuity mistake in the last chapter that I realized was a problem in this chapter… so I fixed it. :P Yeah, I'm not gonna tell you what it was, but it was there and now it's not. XP
- 'Axel didn't hesitate' — You see that part where it says, 'Axel didn't hesitate'? Take that, and burn it into your mind. Good. Now repeat to yourself one-hundred times, "There is no version of the story in which Axel hesitates and says, 'but finders keepers'." Good. Now remind yourself that Axel is a good character and the canon is not always right. Yes, good good…
Glossary
- The Wither — If I didn't explain this well enough in the story itself… I stink. :/ Please let me know.
- Command Block — Command Blocks are essentially what you use (or used to use) to program the game within the game. In the game itself, a single block isn't very versatile on its own, but is likely much more powerful that it was even in MCSM. For example, in Minecraft a single Command Block can kill every living thing in the world with the push of a button, but to make a basic calculator, you'd need at least a hundred. This is because one block acts as a single line of code, so a single 'command', and 'kill literally everything' can be written as one command. It's actually harder to select a single person to kill. o_o Therefore, power does not equal versatility.
That being said, in my headcanon, a Command Block in the MCSM world would be far less powerful, but MUCH more versatile. Instead of being a single line of code, it's basically an entire computer that can be used to reprogram reality itself. O.o That's basically the Command Block.